Bicycle-friendly city hooked on dangerous intersections

Monday

Nov 28, 2011 at 12:01 AMNov 28, 2011 at 12:20 PM

Robert Johnson

Portland, Ore., is often touted as the leader in bicycle-friendly communities and for good reason. Portland boasts a 6 percent mode-share number, meaning 6 percent of all trips in the city are done by bicycle. When you consider that many of the other trips are via mass transit, in several parts of Portland it seems as though there are more bicycles than automobiles. Itís really a remarkable place.

However, when I visited Portland and rode a bicycle around the city, I became very nervous at the intersections. In Portland, bicycle lanes do not end before the intersection the way they do in Columbia; instead, they continue all the way to the end, staying to the right of the regular traffic lane.

So at every intersection, you have a possible straight-through lane (the bicycle lane) to the right of a possible right turn lane (the regular traffic lane). As a driver in the United States, you will never encounter a driving design like this anywhere; itís counter to our basic traffic principles. To help put this into perspective, imagine you pull up to an intersection where two four-lane streets come together. You are in a small car in the right-hand lane, preparing to continue straight. You look over to the left and see a semitruck, right beside you, with its right-side turn signal on. Pretty scary stuff, and bicyclists in Portland face this at nearly every intersection.

As a result of this design, Portland has had several crashes called ďright hooks.Ē That is where a right-turning motorist strikes a bicyclist who was trying to continue straight through an intersection. Over the years, some bicyclists have been killed, others injured, and the city has struggled with what to do about the situation. One initiative the city thought might work is ďbike boxes.Ē A bike box is a space in front of the waiting motorists at an intersection. Itís designed so that while motorists are waiting at a red light, bicyclists can move to the front of the line and position themselves in front of the drivers, where they can be seen and therefore safe from right-hook crashes.

When I first heard of bike boxes, I knew they had one fatal flaw. Many right-hook crashes occur during green-signal phases, so bicyclists donít have the opportunity to get in front of the traffic. That turned out to be true, and right-hook crashes have continued to occur.

I recently read a story out of Portland that said because bike boxes have not solved the problem, the city is now installing lighted signs instructing motorists to be more careful when turning right and crossing a bike lane.

Portland can add all of the bike boxes and lighted signs in the world, and itís not going to prevent right-turning motorists from striking straight-through bicyclists. Motorists have been taught and then reinforced in nearly every other city in the United States that when they are in the right-most travel lane, they can turn right without having to consider a small, difficult-to-see vehicle passing them on the right. Itís a scary situation for the riders, many too new to bicycling to fully understand the danger, and itís a terrible situation for drivers. Thatís especially true for people driving large trucks, where itís extremely difficult to see out of the passenger-side mirror for a bicyclist who might be only a few feet from the right side of their truck passing at 20 mph.

Portland is an awesome bicycling city. However, it could take a page out of Columbiaís ó and most other citiesí ó playbook and end the bicycle lanes before the intersection. Many riders will not understand they should leave the right side of the lane and position themselves in the middle before crossing the intersection, which is the only way to fully prevent a right-hook crash, but at least the government will not be mandating they keep themselves in a vulnerable position.